A Handwoven Wool Purse

Photo of the entire bag	Closeup of the top of the bag, showing the lining and drawstring

Documentation As Submitted With This Item

Since antiquity one of the most pressing issues facing mankind is the eternal question, "how do I carry all this stuff?"  Even the wealthiest individual would need a few personal items to be readily accessible.  One very common way to carry small items in the Middle Ages was the belt purse.  In the 12^th and 13^th century, there were several styles of belt purses and pouches.  Women's purses (as well as some men's purses) were often hung on a long cord from the girdle.  This can be clearly seen on the detail from a manuscript of Aristotle's Ethics (The Hague, MMW, 10 D 1, fol. 150r), dated 1376.

This style of bag was most commonly rectangular or square, although it is often depicted in art with the drawstrings pulled tight leading to a more triangular appearance. Generally, drawstrings exited from the both sides of the bag.  Two extant pouches from the Musee d'Art Religieux et D'art de Mosan, dated 1200-1300, clearly show the drawstrings exiting in this fashion (here and here). The cords from which the purse is suspended insert into the upper edge.  The lower edges of the purses are decorated with tassels at both corners as well as the center bottom. 

My goal for this project was to create a handwoven belt purse suitable to a lower class persona, who would be unlikely to have access to silk or rich embroidery.  I chose to create my purse out of 2/2 wool twill with a linen lining. Wool is one of the most widely available fabrics in period, and lower grades would have been cheap and readily available to the working poor.  2/2 twill is a ubiquitous weave used throughout much of history. It is the most common twill found in both Roman and Anglo-Saxon clothing in the British provinces (Jenkins 87 and 125; Owen-Crocker 293), and a variety of examples of 2/2 wool twill were found in the 13^th to 15^th century deposits excavated by the Museum of London (Crowfoot 36). 

The fabric for this purse was woven on a 36" 8 shaft Schacht low castle floor loom, using only 4 shafts. Garnet colored 20/2 Merino wool yarn was used for the warp (Jaggerspun Merino, Halcyon Yarn, Bath ME) and the same yarn in a claret color was used for the weft.  The incremental difference in warp and weft colors provides a subtle shading effect on the surface of the fabric.  The warp was set at 24 ends per inch, sleyed 2 ends per dent in a 12 dent reed, for a total width of 10".  A total of 240 ends plus 2 ends for a floating selvedge were used.  Merino wool is a compromise choice for this project.  Although merino sheep were beginning to be developed during this period in Spain (Jenkins 262), it is unlikely that an English workingwoman would have access to merino yarns or fleece.  However, even generic wool yarns of this period tended to be much finer than the wool yarns available in the modern era.  Of the four-shed twills found in the London excavations, the average number of threads per centimeter was around 10-12, yielding approximately 25 to 30 threads per inch (Crowfoot 38).  The Jaggerspun merino yarn was the only readily available modern wool yarn suitable for this sett.

Weaving in progress

The woven fabric was initially wet finished by a one hour soak in cool water with mild soap (Soak Wool Wash, Halcyon Yarn, Bath ME) prior to fulling. Fulling involves agitating the wool fibers so that the microscopic scales on the hairs lock together.  The end result is a denser, thicker cloth with an improved ability to retain warmth.  Although this process frequently causes great distress when initiated accidentally (for instance, by inadvertently running a wool sweater through the washer and dryer), it can be used in a controlled fashion to significantly change the hand of the fabric and reduce or completely prevent raveling.  Wool tabby weaves were usually heavily fulled in period, to the extent that the weave can be completely obscured by the nap that is raised during the fulling process.  Twills, on the other hand, were not fulled or were only lightly fulled, since heavy fulling would obscure the design of the twill (Jenkins 184).  I chose to lightly full the wool for this purse by agitating the fabric in hot water and drying in the clothes dryer on low heat for two 10 minute cycles.  The result was a softer, fuzzier surface to the twill with 10% overall shrinkage in width.  Because Jaggerspun merino is a worsted yarn (made of long-staple fibers), there was much less shrinkage than might be expected with a woolen yarn (made of short-staple fibers). Although 2/2 twill is a balanced design, subtle differences in the interaction of the direction of the thread twist with the twill line leads to a different appearance to the two sides of the cloth. 

The bag was handsewn using 80/2 grey linen thread (Londonderry Linen, Hedgehog Handworks, Westchester CA), strengthened with beeswax.  Linen thread was the predominant sewing thread used throughout the Middle Ages, as evidenced by the many surviving wool fragments with holes along seam lines where the linen thread has rotted away (Crowfoot 151).  The seams are sewn in back stitch, and the narrow 1/4" seam allowances were gently pressed flat. Tassels were created prior to inserting the linen lining. Unused warp yarn was passed multiple times through the corners of the bag, wrapping over a card, then cut off the card and bound at the point of origin with like material. 

Broad Lace of V Bowes (from Benns & Barrett)

The handle of the bag is a fingerloop braid of the warp yarn, following the 'broad lace of V bowes' pattern described in the Harvey 2320 manuscript of fingerloop braiding patterns dating from the late 15^th century and diagrammed in Figure 4 (Benns and Barrett 39).  The handle of an extant silk pouch from the 14^th century is made of a fingerloop braid (Crowfoot 114) (Figure 3), and many similar fragments of fingerloop braids were found in the contemporaneous deposits (Crowfoot 130).  The handle is laid along the seam of the wool twill on both sides of the bag and tacked to the seam allowance.  Finally, the seams of the linen lining were handsewn with the 80/2 linen thread and whipstitched into place.  The drawstrings are composed of 4 strands of the warp yarn, threaded in parallel through the same needle, worked through holes in the bag created by a sharp awl.  The drawstrings are knotted together at each edge of the bag.  The loose ends at both edges are then plaited into an eight strand braid.  The eight element plait is the most common flat plait found in the London excavations from the 13^th and 14^th century; three and six element plaits were also found but were much more rare (Crowfoot, 140).

As this was my first four harness weaving project after completing a series of beginning weaving classes in February 2007, I experienced a number of challenges.  The first problem occurred on the warping board.  I attempted to measure all the ends for the warp at once, and by the end the pegs on my warping board were slightly bowed.  This meant that the thread lengths were slightly shorter on one side of the warp.  This may have contributed to my second problem, which was the tendency of my right selvedge to have much more draw-in than my left.  While I could overcome this with careful attention, I think the slightly uneven tension caused by my error on the warping board increased the challenge.  This may have been compounded by the fact that I had never previously warped a large floor loom.  Compared to the small table looms I had used in class, the large floor loom required much more physical contortion and provided less fine control over warp tension when beaming on.  After discussion with other weavers of Atlantia, in the future I will only measure at most a few inches of warp at a time on the warping board, and I will use an assistant when beaming on to improve control over warp tension.

            WORKS CITED

Aristotle's Ethics. Accessed June 1, 2007.

Benns, Elizabeth and Gina Barrett.  Tak V Bowes Departed:  A 15^th Century Braiding Manual Examined.  London: Soper Lane, 2005.

Crowfoot, Elisabeth; Pritchard, Frances; and Kay Staniland.  Textiles and Clothing 1150-1450.  Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2001.

Harris, Karen.  Purses Linkpage. Accessed June 1, 2007.

Jenkins, David, ed.  The Cambridge History of Western Textiles, vol I.  Cambridge:  The Cambridge University Press, 2003.

Owen-Crocker, Gale.  Dress in Anglo-Saxon England. Woodbridge:  The Boydell Press, 1986.

Royal Institute for the Study and Conservation of Belgium's Artistic Heritage (search by item number 10128674 and 10069287).  Accessed June 1, 2007.